Just as a restaurant can’t rely only on a flashy
front-of-house to retain business, speakers need
to build a strong back-of-house with consistent,
quality o;erings that cater to their clients’ tastes.
Restaurants may draw you in with the atmosphere
and their signature main dishes, but it’s the wine,
appetizers, and desserts where they really make
their money. If they can turn you into a “regular,”
they hit the jackpot.

So what’s missing from your menu?

Most uber-successful speakers know the
answer to that. They have lucrative income
streams that are mostly hidden from your view.
Income streams that hold the key to their prosperity, sustainability, and scalability. Income
streams that are bigger than any front-end speaking engagements you might see them deliver. In
this type of income model, you earn more after
the speaking engagement than you do from the
upfront commitment.

By the end of this article you’ll have a whole
new perspective on income models, as well as
be able to identify ways to improve yours by
introducing (or beefing up) the ingredients in
your own back-end business.

As Tony Robbins often says, “To be successful,
model successful people.” Good advice for anyone
in any industry.

So, who are the most successful speakers
in NSA? Well, by the financial yardstick, they
would be the members of NSA’s ultra-exclusive
Million Dollar Speakers Group (MDSG), who
gather in a private members-only session at every
conference.

You rarely see a keynote-only speaker. Of course, the big
stars are sometimes there, but they’re far outnumbered by those
for whom speaking is the front-end, and the real business is on the
back-end.

Hedge fund CEO, venture capitalist, and creator of “When It
Comes to Money, Everything Is Rigged,” Joel Block, CSP, has a model
that could be called the antithesis of the traditional speaker model.
First o;, he loves speaking for free and isn’t ashamed to admit it—as
long as it’s in front of his ideal audience.

He uses these engagements to generate applications (read: leads)
for his private seminars, where, as he puts it: “I own the gate, I call
the shots, I run the show, it’s my deal. I deliver massive value teaching about how money works, and how to invest in a fund. Then I o;er
a high-touch, high-value done-with-you fund creation program and
we always get several clients for that.” Boom. Rinse. Repeat.

You see variety. No two models are exactly the same, and most
speakers grow into their models over time, by listening to their clients’ needs, and to their own needs.

Such is the case of Stacey Hanke, CSP, who, like many of us, “just
wanted to be a straight-up keynote speaker” and was on track to do
just that. But her clients wanted a longer- term relationship with her
and with her content.

At first Stacey tried delivering the follow-up herself, but soon
found she was unable to keep up with demand. So, she started hiring
trainers and building her team.

Over the past 15 years, she’s built up four additional “profit centers” in her business:

Just as a restaurant can’t rely only on a flashy
front-of-house to retain business, speakers need
to build a strong back-of-house with consistent,